He said. She said. How we got engaged!

He said:

When my parents came to visit us in Fort Wayne, an opportunity arose. They snuck off with me for a day to help pick out the perfect ring. I spent about a week devising a plan for it all. After crunching some numbers, I went to the store and bought the ring.

And then, I just sat in my car.

After about fifteen minutes of holding the phone, I mustered up the courage to call Dani’s parents. I was so nervous, I was sweating. A lot. I thoroughly explained the ring and my plan, to my relief, Robin (Dani’s mom) was excited. The next step was to ask Paul (Dani’s dad) for his blessing. I certainly wished I could have done it person, but under the circumstance, this would have to do. Thankfully Paul was so excited, it helped me to calm down. He expressed “Not only have you made my day, or my month….you made my year!”.

With all of my angles covered, I patiently waited until the day. I think I did a pretty good job playing it “cool”, but boy was that tough.

The night before the 6th of December, I did not sleep well at all. Dani worked third shift at the time so I was alone with my thoughts. I had to make this good.

I snuck out of bed before Dani and made cinnamon rolls and coffee, trying to make the morning perfect. I woke her up and asked if she wanted to check our shoes for our St. Nicholas Day presents. She didn’t seemed too thrilled about getting up after only sleeping a couple hours, but the smell cinnamon rolls helped (I think). This is where it gets intense.

With a coffee buzz and a fear of it not being perfect, I went and got my present. Dani asked me to get hers and I said that she had to get it herself. Not really thinking that it would seem rude, it made sense to me. I opened mine quickly and waited for her to start opening hers.

The morning of December 6th, 2007 I got done on my knee and asked Danielle Schloesser to marry me.

She started laughing and became hysterical. I was worried at first and finally said “So?!”. She exclaimed “Yes! Yes!”. Almost immediately after, we called home to share the news.

She said:

December 6th, St. Nicholas Day, has always been an exciting date in my family. As kids we would put our shoes by the front door the night of the 5th an anxiously await a visit from St. Nicholas. As long as we had been good, we would awake the next morning to a small present. If we had been bad... You know the drill... Coal.

For me, St. Nicholas Day was the perfect way to prep for Christmas!!! It just made sense to bring this tradition into the life that Phil and I had created together.

I awoke December 6th, 2007 to the smell of cinnamon rolls and the excitement of giving and receiving the first gifts of the Christmas Season.

After finishing breakfast I asked Phil if he wanted to open our gifts. While he went to the door to grab his, I asked him to grab me mine as well...

He said no.

Assuming he would rather just open his than get me mine, I ran to my shoe to get it myself. Tucked down in the toe I saw a little black box with a silver ribbon.

I nervously walked back to the couch and set my gift aside. I couldn’t even fathom what he would have gotten me that could have been wrapped so pretty!

I let Phil open his gift first. (Thinking back, I realize he was less than focused on the Simpson X-Mas DVD he had received)

Next came mine.

I slowly opened the box and couldn’t believe what I saw! Before I knew it, Phil was down on one knee and shakily asking if I would marry him! After quite a few giggles and few seconds of me saying, “Seriously!? But, like, seriously!? Really!?”…I said, “YES!”